May

28

One of the Schoolhouse sessions that I attended during Spring Market was a presentation by Tri-State Printing. Tri-State is a well know name in the quilting industry. I’ve never used them, but I’ve been aware of them for a long time. They are extremely knowledgeable about our industry and its printing needs, and they print for a ton of quilt designers. If you need a little or a lot of help with your printed materials, from pattern covers to brochures to self-published books, they would be a good company to contact.

The Quilted Frog gals have developed a distinctive, cartoony, and very fun style they call Easy Outline Appliqué™. You have to go to their website and see the quilts from the new book! They are so different looking, really fresh and appealing!

Over on their website they also have tutorials and videos, so be sure to poke around all the great resources they offer.

There’s more from Schoolhouse and Market. I’m trying to wrangle some guest posts, so stay tuned!

Whilst I was tramping around the aisles of Market, I stopped by the Creative Crafts Group booth. They’re the ones who publish Quiltmaker and the special 100 Blocks issues, among many other publications. I was tickled to see the cover of the recent 100 Blocks Volume 3 blown up to poster size. A staffer insisted on taking my picture, and she told me to point to my block. This cheesy maneuver caused me to slump down, which made me look like I gained back that 10 pounds I just lost, but oh well.

In case you ‘re interested in getting that special issue and haven’t found it yet, I have it available on my website now, on the Patterns page.

May

25

In the recent call for topics, Susan wrote: “I would like more information on wool appliqué (fusing) and the decorative stitches (not limited to blanket stitch) that can be used to embellish the wool.”

The next Schoolhouse that I went to was presented by the Quilted Crow Girls, Leonie and Deirdre, who came all the way from Tasmania! That’s a small island off the coast of Australia! They were delightful to listen to.

The Girls specialize in felted-wool appliqué, and at the session they shared their techniques for achieving a neat and soft finished product. First of all, they do not fuse the wool, they simply stick the appliqué to the background with a bit of water-soluble glue stick and then staple it in place! That’s right, staple! “The wool is self healing,” they point out, “and will not leave a mark when staples are removed.”

Their preferred stitch is the blanket stitch. However, in response to Susan’s question, I’m sure there are many others ways to stitch the edges of the wool. A primitive running stitch comes to mind. At Market, there were tons of “woolies,” i.e. designers featuring wool appliqué. Here are the ones that I’ve just added to the blogroll, fresh from Market:

In addition to these, there are many more woolies in the blogroll (right-hand sidebar, at the bottom). Did you know that if you hover your mouse over a link, a little tag will pop up? Look for “wool” in the pop-ups and you’ll find a bunch.

The Quilted Crow Girls laid a free pattern on their Schoolhouse attendees. Nice!

I’m passing along this gorgeous wool appliqué runner pattern in a drawing. If you’d like to win, leave a comment by 7:00 p.m. California time on Saturday, May 28. In your comment, feel free to pass along any wool tips that you might have to share. Contest open to U.S. and Canada addresses only.

May

18

All the projects in this book are super cute, ’30s style, and all incorporate a touch of appliqué. I’ll try to get my hands on a copy of this book in the future.

By then it was time for a little lunch. At Market you sit down wherever, and usually end up striking up a conversation with your neighbors. I started chatting with a couple gals and found out that they were sisters and co-authors of the new book Circle of Nine.

The subtitle is “24 Stunning and Creative Quilts: One Unique Quilt Setting.” A beautiful way to set a collection of nine blocks!

The Checker Distributors Newsletter has a lot of great photos from Market. Pat Sloan also has fun Market recaps up on her blog, and recorded some radio interviews while she was there. More to come from me, including a lot of great information addressing some of the questions in the recent call for topics.

For those of you in the greater Los Angeles area, I’ll be in Northridge this weekend for Quilting in the Valley 2011, an annual show put on jointly by two area quilt guilds. Full information at quiltinginthevalley.com. Hope to see you there!

May

16

The trip to Salt Lake City for Spring Quilt Market went “like butter.” I had a blast and a half. The good times started just as soon as the plane out of San Jose finished loading. My seat neighbor turned out to be going where I was going, so naturally we chattered like magpies the whole flight.

Julie operates an on-line boutique fabric shop, The Intrepid Thread, stocked with fresh modern fabrics. (And a whole lot of new ones coming after she saw the fabulous lines debuting at Market.)

And get this… Julie said her friend Sally, who was picking her up at the airport, would give me a ride to my hotel too! How’s that for nice? No Supershuttling! They even picked me up and took me back to the airport for the flight home!

These are the sweet gals who adopted me. Julie, left, and Sally, right.

Julie and Sally were there to shop, of course, and also to help out Amanda Herring at the Quilted Fish booth. All of them are part of the Riley Blake design team. Whew, these young quilter gals! Enough energy to power Salt Lake City for a week! Both of them have nice Market photos and stories on their blogs.

Thursday was Schoolhouse, which is a series of short break-out sessions geared toward the shop owner, to introduce what’s new and exciting. This is how it works. Two hours before the whole deal starts, you can get the schedule. There was a huge room full of chairs where you could sit and study the offerings, plotting and scheming on which ones you wanted to go to. There were about 20 sessions in each time slot, so if there were two at once you liked, you had to pick the one you wanted most!

When each session ended, it was that silly thing that happens when elevator doors open… people wanting to get out and people wanting to get in at the same time. There were thousands of bodies, everybody had wheelie bags, and it was one great big milling churn dash. I’ll share the first couple sessions that I went to, and I’ll put up more information later, in bites.

First on the docket I chose to go hear Dan Purcell. Dan is the boy genius son of Bob and Heather Purcell of Superior Threads. Dan, a smartywhistle techie extraordinaire, grew up in the quilting industry and is the nicest, friendliest young guy you would ever want to meet. Dan operates Websites for Quilters, a company offering a whole bunch of services for quilters who want to be on the web and need a little or a lot of help.

One of the great things that Dan told us about is his FindMyFabric.com, a fabric, quilting, and sewing supply search engine. You can search for products offered by hundreds of online stores to find exactly what you are looking for. You can also search by uploading a photo of the fabric you need more of! How cool is that?? And totally free, this one.

Dan also operates QuilterBlogs.com, a directory of quilting blogs that you can check out to see what’s out there in the blogosphere.

I bought Dan’s book so I can learn more valuable nuggets about having a quilting website.

Next I went to the presentation by Stacey Michell of Shades Textiles. Stacey’s main product is SoftFuse, a paper-backed fusible web that has become my favorite. It’s the lightest weight, and it actually works the way this type of product is supposed to work! What a concept! It fuses quickly, the paper comes off right away, and like I said it is extremely lightweight and flexible.

Stacey’s mom is Marti Michell. They were both there at the session to show us how you can use the product to do a prepared-edge type of appliqué for either hand or machine stitching. It’s fused, and the edges are turned! Very interesting! I’ll be giving this a try myself and will report the results here on the blog. I ordered some SoftFuse so I’ll be able to offer it on my website soon.

May

10

First of all, thank you so much to everyone who visited during the recent blog hop and left nice comments about my Party Frock. Several people suggested that the block would look nice done up in multiples, with different dresses. Great idea! That may just to be something that I need to revisit in the future!

A couple designing buddies of mine have just come out with new patterns that are extremely high on the cuteness scale.

Rita and Debbie told me that since some of the appliqué pieces in the pattern are large, they decided to print one large copy of the design, thinking this would be easier for the quilter than taping several smaller pieces together. The drawing can be taped up onto a sliding glass door or a large window to trace the appliqué pieces, and you can also use the whole drawing to place under the background fabric for placement of the appliqué pieces.

That is certainly an added convenience for the quilter! No More Monkeys is available from their Etsy store.

Neeext… Holly Mabutas of Eat Cake Graphics is at it again! She has just released a darling new quilt pattern called To The World.

This pattern started out life as a rubber stamp, like many of Holly’s do, and is now available for quilters. The very cool thing about Holly’s patterns (besides their adorability) is that Holy includes instructions for her freezer-paper-on-top-glue-to-the-back method of preparation for hand appliqué.

I’m off to Salt Lake City tomorrow for International Quilt Market, Spring Edition. My publisher has lined up a couple book signings for me, which are so much fun and quite a heady experience. See you after I get home!

May

8

It appears that I set the ending date of the drawings out a little too far. It’s been 24 hours now with no new entries, so I’m going to go ahead and pull the winners. I’m getting ready for a trip to Salt Lake City for Spring Market, as are the staff of Quiltmaker, so let’s get this wrapped up!

According to random.org, the winner of a copy of Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks, Volume 3, is… Subee Mohr! Waving back at you out there in Indiana, Subee! I’ll be contacting you for your mailing info so that Quiltmaker can send you the magazine.

The second winner, who will receive one of my books, namely Growing Hearts to Appliqué, is… Joan Amundsen. Congratulations Joan! I’ll be in touch for your address as well.

BTW, since I did not get my post up quite in time (I made a scheduling mistake with the 24-hour clock), several early birds (including Joan) left their comment on the previous post. I made sure to include those comments in the drawings too.

May

5

A heartfelt welcome to those who are visiting for the first time today courtesy of the Quiltmaker’s 100 Blocks Blog Tour! So glad you came by! This blog is devoted to appliqué ~ any kind. You’ll find a wealth of information by exploring the Categories and the lists of links to designers and pattern companies. You can also search the archives by keyword if there’s something in particular you’re interested in.

Today I’m writing about my entry in Volume 3 of 100 Blocks, a very special collector’s edition of Quiltmaker magazine that hits the newsstands May 10.

Lookie! I’m on the cover!

This is part of a superfun blog hop that takes you on a trip through cyberspace to find out more about the designers and what inspired them to create their blocks.

Since it’s me we’re talkin’ about, of course my block was going to be applique. After my book Easy Applique Blocks: 50 Designs in 5 Sizes came out, I immediately started on another batch of new block designs. Some of them weren’t right for my next book, Inspired by Tradition, so I had a bunch of designs piled up, awaiting their manifest destiny. It was easy to pull one out, stitch it up in the right size, and send it in! Done, done, and fun!

Here it is, months later, Block #206!

I used raw-edge fusible appliqué with a small machine blanket stitch. But of course, you can use whatever form of appliqué you like.

The magazine includes a pull-out section of full-size templates so no worries about blowing up patterns. I already received my advance copy, and let me tell you, each block is more spectacular than the last, whether appliquéd, pieced, foundation-pieced, or mixed-technique. This truly is a treasure trove… you’ll want to save it for your future use again and again.

Be sure to visit Quilty Pleasures, because there are prize drawings still going on.

I happen to have a couple prizes of my own! I have a copy of the magazine to give away, and I’m throwing in my book Growing Hearts to Appliqué for another winner. So leave a comment before 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 8, to enter the drawings! Thanks for visiting, come again soon!

May

2

Hop on over to Quiltmaker’s Quilty Pleasures blog! It’s the first day of the 100 Blocks Special Issue Volume 3 blog hop, with lots of great prizes. The hop goes all week, through May 6, so check back at Quilty Pleasures every day.